Don´t know if this will become a section of my blog, but right now I love analizying and squeezing every detail of a collection in order to unveil and find out the historic references a designer uses on a model. And they also demonstrate that in fashion, everything is invented. Shall we travel in time with Chanel and their prefall 2013 collection?

Mary Stuart was the Queen of Scots, but her influence went beyond her kingdom. Related to the Tudors, she was on the spotlight of the English crown due to she was the successor of her cousin Elisabeth I (daughter of Henry VIII), who refused to get married and have children. Besides, Mary kept in contact with the French court because of her marriage to the French king, Francis II, as Karl Lagerfeld has shown in his last collection.

In the Reinassance, Italia become the fashion focus, and later, Spain would be the main one. A nice "trend" of the epoque was the huge sleeves of costumes that sometimes were very tight along the forearm. Thanks to the court of Philip II of Spain, the "ropilla" become very popular: it was a kind of coat worn widely opened. In the case of Cate Blanchett, starring Elizabeth I (2007) wears her dress with aruff: a kind of neck over the costume.

Con la lechuguilla se empieza a imponer una especie de cuello que se almidonaba, lo que aportaba gran rigidez. Asimismo, se ciñe el torso y se aplana el pecho, consiguiendo la característica silueta de la época gracias a lo que se conoce como cartones de pecho (el corsé de la época)// With the ruff, a rigid neck becomes the common end of the aristocratic dress. Moreover, the torso is wrapped and the chest is flattened, getting the common silhouette thanks to the cartones de pecho (sorry, couldn´t find the English translation, it was the bustier of the Spanish Reinassance).

High classes of the Reinassance used to wear rich fabrics such as silk and brocades (a sign of belonging to the powerful stratums in society), decorated with pearls and gemstones. It was very common among the members of royalty the fact of wearing a dress just once in life, so every precious stone was sewed to the dress by hand. When the garment was going to be put in the wardrobe, each gem was unstichted in order to be used in other pieces (imagine when those huge dresses or breeches had at least 400 pearls). As the photo detail below shows, Chanel is inspired by the ostentation of the epoque and covers the back of some of its wonderful coats with small golden beads and floating pearls, according to this XVI century trend.

Las perlas también eran muy usadas como parte de los tocados y decoración del pelo. Un ejemplo lo tenemos en Isabel I de Inglaterra, o también en la princesa de Éboli, una duquesa muy famosa de la corte de Felipe II que llevaba un parche en el ojo derecho. Haciendo una síntesis de estos dos looks de la última colección de Chanel, se pueden apreciar no solo el uso de joyas para el pelo, sino también mangas muy abultadas, como en el retrato de la monarca inglesa, y el uso de un sobrevestido ceñido con un cinturón en cadena, que bien podría la parte de abajo de la mencionada "ropilla". // Pearls were also used as a part of hair-dresses and hairdos, like in this example of queen Elizabeth I and the princess of Eboli too, a very ambitious duchess in the Philip II of Spain court who used to wear a patch in the right eye. We can appreciate in both looks of Chanel prefall not only the pearl decoration, but also the puffed sleeves and the "over-dress" with a metal belt decorated with heraldic motifs.

Layers was already a trend 400 years ago. To get this effect, they used a kind of sleeves that allowed to see a linen shirt, a piece that was underneath the dress, made in rich fabrics. In this case, Chanel uses wool for its dresses and shows the "under" shirt in the shoulders.

The Chanel look in the left reminds of the Rhingrave sihouette, born in the Netherlands in the XVII century. This mixture of skirt and pants will be adopted by Louis XIV of France. In this case, Lagerfeld mentioned the French nation of the maison thanks to the it-boy of the XVII century;).

Lagerfeld knows perfectly how toally Scotland and France roots in these three looks. In one hand, he uses a print like plaids, very common in the tartan of the traditional Scottish kilts, and in the other hand he joins them to French historic shapes, like these ties or cravats, very fashionable in the Louis XIV of France court of Versailles. At that moment, the dress coat, a garment from the militar uniform, becomes an it-cloth in France as a part of the "vêtement a la française", the look of XVII century. For instance, here it is the Chanel outfit in the right.

Moreover, every season Chanel updates the tweed, and in this collection it gives it back to its origins thanks to the plaids, when Coco Chanel got it from the Scottish sepherds clothes (tweed was a rough fabric as a result of the left-overs of the tartans. Until Chanel, tweed was only worn by the most humble classes). This represents the perfect union between both nations, as the creator of the maison did in her beginning. So, Lagerfeld´s tribute to his predecessor is sublime.

Finalmente os dejo con dos vídeos de la colección, el primero es el desfile completo, que tuvo lugar en el palacio de Linlithgow, donde nació María Estuardo, y el segundo es un making off donde se pueden apreciar mejor los detalles. ¡Que los disfrutéis!// These are two videos of the collection. The first one is the whole performance of the Chanel 2013 prefall, that took place in the Linlithgow Palace, where Mary Stuart was born. The second one is a making off where you can really apreciate the precious details. Enjoy!

¿Do you still have any doubt about which print will become the hit for next spring summer 2013? I gave you some clues in the previous post, but right now Elisa Nalin and all it-girls have put it into their wardrobe: edding STRIPES, for sure;)

As Coco Chanel used to say, fashion isn´t just about clothes, but a way of life, a personality, art, reflection of a certain epoque. Nowadays, all this crazy arrival of trends and the "everything is possible" in a look is just a synonim of a revolution in which every new thing is immediately substituted by a new trend (this fast change can also be seen in technology). In this eclecticism that is driving crazy the whole fashionista world, the past is introduce in present and future as a new trend.

For this reason, if you have noticed stripes are already at the streets, you can draw a family tree where the last Zara lookbook gives birth to this Stradivarius shirt, who reminds of this one of Monki brand.